The Soulmate Equation

“Whose house is this?” Juno asked, peering through the windshield at the two-story orange stucco house. She scrunched her nose. “It smells like that comic book shop we went to.”

Weed. It smelled like weed. But that was the least of Jess’s worries.

“It’s Grandma Jamie’s friend’s house.” Jess helped her daughter from the back seat and took her hand. “I want you to hold on to my hand the whole time, and don’t talk to anyone.” They made their way up the driveway, but Jess stopped. Who knew what they would find inside? “Just—don’t look at anything if you can help it.”

Juno nodded, gripping her mom’s hand in her clammy little one. Jess tried to keep most of the bad stuff from her kid, but Juno knew enough about Jamie to not ask too many questions.

The front door was partially ajar and Def Leppard blasted sharply out onto the front porch. Juno gave her mom a wary frown before Jess pushed the door open and took a step inside. “Hello?”

Jamie walked around the corner with a tumbler of amber liquid in her hand, but when she saw her daughter, she immediately put it down on a cluttered table. She was barefoot and wearing a knee-length sundress; Jess tightened her grip on Juno as she glanced uneasily around the room. There was a man passed out on a couch, a woman in the kitchen anxiously pacing as she murmured into a phone. God only knew what was happening upstairs. “Get your things, Mom. Time to go.”

Jamie spotted Juno, and her face brightened, arms went wide. “There’s my baby girl.” Her voice was too big, smile too wide. “Give Grandma a hug.” Juno took a step back, wrapping her arms around Jess’s waist and hiding behind her legs. Dejected, Jamie straightened and turned her attention to her daughter. “Didn’t think you’d be here so soon.”

Jamie didn’t seem falling-down drunk, but her complexion was pallid and vaguely sweaty. She swayed where she stood. As if reading Jess’s thoughts, Jamie swiped self-consciously at the mascara smeared under her eyes and ran two shaking hands through her hair.

“It’s late,” Jess said flatly. “It’s a school night. Everyone in this house is probably drunk or high, including you.”

“Why do you always assume the worst of me?”

Jess wasn’t in the mood to argue. Picking up Juno, she turned toward the door. “I’ll be in the car. If you’re not out there in three minutes, I’m leaving without you.”

Almost exactly three minutes later, Jamie walked out, still barefoot, and climbed into the front seat. As she passed in front of the headlights, Jess could instantly see that she’d lost weight. Jamie had always been slim, but she got rail thin when she was using.

“Where are your shoes?” Jess asked, putting the car into reverse and backing out of the driveway. Not that it mattered; Jess wouldn’t turn back for them. She’d give up her own shoes first.

Jamie looked down at her dirty feet and frowned. “Oh … I’m not sure.”

It took intense effort for Jess to focus on driving safely. She was so furious, so disappointed, she was afraid to even open her mouth. A glance in the rearview mirror reassured her that Juno was watching Lady and the Tramp on Jess’s iPhone, eyes heavy with exhaustion and headphones firmly in place. With any luck she’d be asleep before they were even on the freeway.

The miles passed in tense silence as they headed toward Jamie’s apartment farther inland—a new address since only a handful of months ago.

“You didn’t have to come,” Jamie finally said, clearly trying to smooth things over by sitting up pin-straight and enunciating. Jess was very rarely mad at her. Her mother had forgotten holidays, mostly missed her high school graduation, and outright lied to Jess about her sobriety more times than she could count, but Jess always let it go. Jamie was her mom. She didn’t have any other choice.

But right now, Jess was so tired. “You asked me to come get you.”

“I could have called an Uber or something in the morning.”

“You said you were in trouble.”

“I did?”

Jess exhaled a slow, calming stream of air. It wasn’t worth getting into it. “You said you’ve been sober for eighteen months, so what are you doing drinking at Ann’s?”

“I had one beer.” Jamie let out a curt laugh and turned toward the passenger window. “Of course, to you that ruins everything. You’re always so quick to judge.”

“I’m not judging. I’m upset that I have a hundred and fifty dollars’ worth of groceries in my trunk, including frozen stuff that’s probably ruined. I’m upset that I dropped everything, and instead of having my daughter asleep in her own bed, I had to drag her to some drug party, and you can’t even be straight with me. What’s going on? How on earth did you get in trouble with the police?”